Magazines Lost — Gulp — 58,340 Ad Pages in ’09

Late last year, when media reporters were sniffing around for how publishing houses had done ad-page-wise, some publishers — Meredith and Condé Nast among them — turned over their numbers, while publishers like Hearst and Hachette Filipacchi declined to release numbers early.

Now, the official numbers are out, shedding some light on why that was.

In total, United States magazines lost a startling 58,340 ad pages in 2009, according to Publishers Information Bureau, which tracks almost all major consumer magazines.

Hearst magazines lost almost 3,400 pages, down 19 percent from its 2008 numbers. Every single measured title at Hearst posted ad-page drops (Food Network Magazine, which was a new introduction, did not have 2008 numbers for comparison’s sake). The worst-hit titles were the high-end ones: Town & Country, where ad pages dropped by 45.6 percent, and Veranda, where they dropped by 48.1 percent. The best performer was Redbook, down 10.3 percent.
That’s in keeping with what some other magazine houses saw: luxury titles were hammered, while mass-market magazines kept their appeal for advertisers. Meredith, the publisher of titles like Family Circle and Better Homes & Gardens, lost only about 450 pages. Several of Meredith’s titles — Better Homes, Family Circle, Fitness, Ladies’ Home Journal and More — increased their ad pages. Meredith’s hardest-hit magazines were its two Spanish-language parenting books, Ser Padres and Siempre Mujer, which dropped by 41.2 and 32.3 percent, respectively.

Hachette Filipacchi Media lost about 2,000 pages. Again, its most down-home title — Woman’s Day — held its ground, declining only 3 percent. The high-end home magazine Elle Decor did the worst, falling 33.6 percent (Hachette shuttered Metropolitan Home, another décor title, in November, saying it wanted to focus efforts on Elle Decor.)

Time Inc.’s pages dropped by 4,475, or 16 percent (that includes the part-year results for Fortune Small Business and Southern Accents, which Time Inc. closed in 2009). The biggest declines at Time Inc. titles still in existence came from Fortune, down 49.8 percent, and Money, down 36 percent. The best performer at Time Inc. — and one of the best performers of the year — was People StyleWatch, up 24.4 percent. People was about flat, with a 1.6 percent decline.

Luxury publisher Condé Nast, which had previously released its full-year numbers, estimated it lost more than 8,000 pages in 2009 among its existing magazines, with Architectural Digest, W and Condé Nast Traveler among its biggest declines. Including the partial-year results for magazines that it closed, like Domino and Gourmet, Condé lost about 11,500 pages.